


This Mess Was Yours

by aghamora



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, s04e09: He's Dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 10:52:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13433178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aghamora/pseuds/aghamora
Summary: “Family in the conventional sense, she thinks, is ultimately coincidental. Luck of the draw. Roll of the goddamn dice, and God knows she got dealt a shit hand herself, but there’s nothing coincidental about choice. Family isn’t only blood anyway.Sometimes, you make it. And sometimes, that means more.”A moment of quiet, if not peace, for Frank and Laurel. Post 4x09.





	This Mess Was Yours

**Author's Note:**

> A little coda to 4x09, because after that ep I couldn't NOT write something.

 Frank is sitting at her bedside when she comes to, hunched over in the plastic chair with his hands clasped in front of him, head bowed in something vaguely resembling prayer.

He’s reminded her of a ghost ever since they brought her here, disappearing now and then from her room to wander the walls of the psych ward listlessly, like a residual haunting, a specter stuck in a continuous loop. She’s sure this place must remind him of prison, sure he must feel trapped, suffocated by it all, the endless stream of orderlies with their cloyingly sweet smiles, the threat of sedation to keep her docile always armed like a weapon behind their teeth.

Her room is spartan. It smells like plastic and new paint, of antiseptic, that sterile hospital stench overlaid with something far more sinister. The scent of desperation. Of cages, institutions. This room is like some colorless alternate dimension, purgatory.

No, she thinks, not purgatory. Purgatory would be merciful compared to this. She knows hell when she’s in it.

“Hey,” he greets, as soon as he notices she’s awake, and he’s always been good at faking levity, making everything seem all right, but he seems too exhausted to even try, now, not sleeping for days on end and hardly leaving her side.

Her voice is hoarse from disuse. From screaming. “Hi.”

They don’t say anything, for a while. There’s simultaneously everything and nothing to say, a gully between them aching to be filled, a gaping hole in the world, and finally, out of nowhere, Frank clears his throat, reaching into his back pocket.

“I, uh, I brought you this.”

He holds it out, and it takes her eyes a moment to focus properly but when they do, all the breath goes out of her – because there in his hands he’s holding a picture of her son, the one from Annalise’s phone, printed on a sheet of computer paper and trimmed neatly around the edges, extending it like a humble offering. It isn’t anything new, a bit wrinkled from being in his pocket, and yet somehow that photo is everything, the only lifeline she has to cling to as she can feel her mind slipping, her hold on reality more tenuous by the hour.

But _this_. This picture grounds her. She clutches it in her hands desperately, like someone might try to tear it away from her too.

“I printed it out. So, y’know, you don’t gotta keep lookin’ at that phone, go cross-eyed or somethin’,” he mutters, a bit bashful. “I’ll get a frame, too. Could put it on the nightstand, if you want.”

She doesn’t answer. She only stares, grasping the picture until the edges start to crumple beneath her fingers, until her eyes fill with tears and morph it into a watercolor of blue and white, her son lying there, fragile body not yet ready to be in the world. Her son. The thought feels foreign. He feels so distant, too, like he existed only in a dream.

Like he was never hers at all.

Frank sees the shift in her demeanor, the tears in her eyes, and immediately he moves forward, as close to her as he dares. As close as any ghost would get to the living.

“Hey,” he soothes, softly, reaching out with his words but not daring to do so with his hand. “We’re gonna get him back, Laurel.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t,” she mutters, words slurred from the lingering sedatives in her bloodstream, bogging her down, forcing a wave of lethargy over her. “Maybe… maybe they’re right. And I shouldn’t be around him.” She sniffs, a dry sob pounding through her, and it aches somewhere deep in her chest, ice-cold between her ribs. “Maybe I am crazy.”

There’s visible panic in his eyes, and she knows why; he’s terrified she’s slipping, losing her will to fight – and she is, God, fuck, of fucking course she is, how could she not be. She’s been fighting like hell her entire life, and she fought for her son, and losing him, losing her chance for something better, that little bit of good – that was it. The killing blow.

He knows that. And she knows it scares the shit out of him, the idea of losing her, seeing her fall prey to the darkness of her mind. Retreat into some place he can’t bring her back from.

“You’re _not_ ,” he bites out, the words so sudden they startle her. “You’re not crazy. You know you’re not. _I_ know you’re not. You gotta-” His voice catches. He swallows. “You gotta stay with me. Keep fighting. We-”

“I’m tired of fighting.” Another sob bubbles up in her chest, bursting like a grenade, sending shrapnel into her bloodstream. “I’m tired, Frank.”

Tired. They both are. It never stops, the cycle of blood and death, eating away at them until they’ve become something less than human, broken, half-alive creatures. It was on her, all of this; Simon and her father and the hard drive, and if she hadn’t been so goddamn stupid, if she’d been _careful_ -

“I know,” he rasps. He looks so certain, so sure of her, sure of them. He’s either a fool, she thinks, or a fucking good liar – or both. He’s always been both. “I know you’re tired. But him? He’s worth fightin’ for, he’s…”

She shakes her head. “I don’t deserve him.”

That’s the only truth she can cling to, now: the fact that she doesn’t deserve her son. Something innocent. Something truly good. She’d bought into Frank’s fantasy from time to time, allowed herself to entertain the idea that they could be a family, the pipe dream of a white picket fence and neat, cliché happily-ever-after – but now, now all she’s got is a baby that isn’t his, that isn’t hers either. That might never be hers again. Who was she fucking kidding.

Herself, apparently.

But then there’s Frank, moving in closer still, and now there’s this glint of determination in his eyes, as sharp as steel, conviction in his words stronger than any she’s ever heard in her life. They hit her like physical blows, so forceful are they.

“How can you think that?”

She blinks. “Frank…”

“’Course you deserve him. Everything you’ve done for him? You carried him all those months. You kept him safe. You coulda gotten rid of him – but you gave him a chance. Christ, Laurel, you almost died havin’ him. You gave him… you gave him everything, how could you think you don’t deserve him?”

“I’m gonna ruin him,” she breathes, because however certain _he_ is she deserves her son, she’s even more certain she doesn’t. She knows in her bones, and now, looking at the picture, instead of love she feels only this crushing sense of dread, and she finds herself crumpling the photo even further though she doesn’t mean to, until it’s little more than a half-formed ball. Until it’s nothing. “I’m just… I’m just gonna fuck him up.”

“You won’t,” he tries to tell her, increasingly desperate now. “I told you, I know you’ll be an awesome mom, you-”

“That’s bullshit.”

There’s no force behind the words, no animosity. It’s a simple statement of fact. Bullshit. It’s fucking bullshit and always has been, Frank and his dreams of a life with her, a real life, when all along she’s known the truth of what they are.

He lowers his voice, all at once, changing tactics, trying frantically to find one that will reach her. “Look. Your dad won one battle. He sure as hell ain’t winnin’ this war. We’re gonna play by their rules while we have to, get you outta here. Once we do, we’re gonna get him back.” Frank pauses to collect his thoughts, releasing a breath. “He’s my family and so are you. I’m not stoppin’ until we get him back.”

Family. He must be joking. Now he’s a comedian. Fucking _family_. Playing house with her, with a baby that isn’t his. If she could laugh right then, she would, because he’s more fool than liar, she knows that now for certain.

“He’s not yours,” she remarks, hollowly, a note of something sardonic in her voice.

“So?” She opens her mouth to reply, but he’s speaking before she can, still with that same stubborn, dauntless faith, this look in his eyes she’s never been looked at with before. “You think that matters? I don’t-” He exhales sharply. “I don’t care what any damn piece of paper says, okay? You and him. You’re my family. You’re…” He drifts off. When he speaks again, his voice is small, like a child’s. “You’re my family.”

It occurs to her what he’s doing, all at once, like a roundhouse kick in the gut. Choosing her. Not only _her_ , but her son, blood and biology be damned, because they come as a package deal now, and when any other sane man would head for the hills, here he is hunkering down, preparing to weather this storm with her, defying all logic and reason and perhaps common sense. She’s never been chosen, she thinks, not once in her life.

Her father who chose money instead of her. Her mother who chose her own chemical escapes. She’s never been chosen. And now, even after everything, Frank is looking her square in the eyes, and he’s doing just that.

“I love him ‘cause I love you,” he tells her, voice full of quiet conviction. “Was never about him bein’ mine. It’s about him bein’ _yours_.”

Hers. He loves her son because of her, so simply, so easily, without even a second thought or a flicker of hesitation; a sort of transitivity he’s opened himself up to without fear. Because he’s right; this baby has never been his, or Wes’s, or anyone’s but her own, all these months. She’s been alone.

But she doesn’t have to be, anymore. She isn’t.

“’Cause you love the hell out of me?” she murmurs, and his face lights up with recognition of the words, the promise he’d made to her that night.

“”Course,” Frank says, taking her hand, pressing a kiss to the back of it. He lets it back down after a moment, moving to release her, but Laurel holds on, before he can, letting their joined hands dangle in the space between the chair and the bed. “Always.”

A pause. She gives him a tiny, humorless grin. “I don’t deserve you either.”

She can’t keep the thought from slipping out. She knows it’s true, that after every godawful thing she’s done to him there is no reason at all he should still be here, sitting at her side. Wanting to be there, for her, for her son who isn’t his, but the idea of blood, of DNA – suddenly it all feels insignificant, like it barely matters at all, as he holds her hand in the space between them. As he makes this choice, choosing both of them.

Frank only smiles, at that, and tightens his hold on her hand. “Too bad, then. ‘Cause you’re stuck with me anyway. And when we get him back-” He takes the crumpled picture from where she’d dropped it on the bed beside her, smoothing out the wrinkles as best he can, before handing it back to her. “You gonna be stuck with both of us.”

 _When._ Not if. He’s so sure, even when she’s completely unsure. Sure enough for both of them. Sure that he wants this; their little broken, mismatched family.

Family in the conventional sense, she thinks, is ultimately coincidental. Luck of the draw. Roll of the goddamn dice, and God knows she got dealt a shit hand herself, but there’s nothing coincidental about choice. Family isn’t only blood anyway.

Sometimes, you make it. And sometimes, that means more.


End file.
